It’s the season of beautiful colors, exquisite light and streaming A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. While returning home from a recent jog, the piles of leaves in my neighborhood incited an idea for a poem. Fortunately, I had a pen and some paper to capture the idea before it slipped away.
The Casualties of Autumn
Every leaf strewn in a pile
collected at the curb
had a life before it
separated from the tree
and twirled to the earth.
Is there a home reserved
for the departed souls of leaves—
a place of repose
for the casualties of autumn?
To mark the end of Daylight Saving Time, I present a poem inspired by autumn scenery. I drafted this poem more than 25 years ago while living with my sister in Toledo, Ohio. I have revised it multiple times over the years, never satisfied with the final result. While this version may not be perfect, I think it’s about the best I can do, and so I release it here.
Falling Back (2024)
Alone on an empty school playground in Toledo, Ohio,
my worn-out sneakers shuffle on asphalt
as I practice left-handed hook shots
on a bent basketball rim with a rusted chain-link net.
The sound of the bouncing ball reverberates
off the school’s red brick façade,
as my reflection jumps out at me in the first-floor windows
adorned with orange paper jack-o’-lanterns.
A towering oak tree with branches like octopus tentacles
observes me as I heave an air ball from three-point land.
It studies my movements while a sharp wind
strips away its cloak of golden-brown leaves.
The cold sticks to my fingertips as I lick them
to get a better grip on the Spalding rubber ball.
And with my nose running incessantly and my chest heaving,
I swallow the chill in the air, trapping it deep inside my lungs.
I pick up my dribble—then stop, smell, look and listen.
Streetlights flicker on in the suburban neighborhood,
and across the road, a pumpkin is perched
on the porch of a modest white house.
The scent of burning leaves wafts in the air.
Charcoal-gray clouds brood in the sky,
and on the western horizon, near a row of pine trees,
there’s a feathering of soft pink light.
At the nearby park, soccer goals stand naked and netless,
and on the gravel softball field,
silence reigns on the base paths and outfield grass.
In the schoolyard, monkey bars are free of tiny, groping hands,
and empty swings sway in the stiff breeze—
calling out for the children to return.
But summer delight has long since passed,
and now Daylight Saving Time concludes again,
with me falling back to the days of my youth in Rome, New York.
I remember two-hand-touch football at Franklyn’s Field,
Friday nights watching the Rome Free Academy Black Knights
trounce visiting opponents under bright stadium lights,
blades of grass and windshields glazed with morning frost,
and autumn’s first taste of a juicy Macintosh.
There is magic and harmony in nature’s ever-spinning cycle.
I need only to look around,
and I find myself back in upstate New York—
my body planted in Ohio, but my mind
transported home to my native land.
Now, since autumn is on my mind with another page of the calendar being ripped, October giving way to November, I want to share some family photos from Halloween.
Colin Joe walking in his school parade.
It was a special day for our family since our eight-year-old autistic son, Colin, participated in a parade at his elementary school and was excited and eager to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.
Colin Joe dressed as a doctor for Halloween.
In other years, we had to drag him out of the house. This year, dressed in his doctor’s costume, he slipped on his sneakers and gripped his pumpkin candy bucket, leading Mom and Dad in search of treats.
While walking on the campus of Le Moyne College last Sunday, I saw this bronze plaque with a poem in honor of a deceased student. The wording captured my interest.
Abby Bohnert ’19
Everyone’s friend.
Red lipstick and thick socks.
Giggles so loud they echo down the hall.
“She is Heaven and Hell’s love child.
Hold her. Name her poem.”
During my staycation this week, I ventured to Bird Library at SU to peruse some novels by Larry McMurtry (author of Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment and The Last Picture Show). I took a little literary detour when I got sidetracked in the stacks—flipping through the volume New and Selected Poems by Samuel Menashe. Menashe’s author photo caught my attention because he reminds me of a young Christopher Walken.
New and Selected Poems by Samuel Menashe.
I’m drawn to Menashe’s concise and illuminating poems that tackle the universal themes of life, death and existentialism.
Here are some of my favorite poems.
Autumn
I walk outside the stone wall
Looking into the park at night
As armed trees frisk a windfall
Down paths that lampposts light.
The Dead of Winter
In my coat I sit
At the window sill
Wintering with snow
That did not melt
It fell long ago
At night, by stealth
I was where I am
When the snow began.
The Living End
Before long the end
Of the beginning
Begins to bend
To the beginning
Of the end you live
With some misgivings
About what you did.
Grief
Disbelief
To begin with—
Later, grief
Taking root
Grapples me
Wherever I am
Branches ram
Me in my bed
You are dead.
Voyage
Water opens without end
At the bow of the ship
Rising to descend
Away from it
Days become one
I am who I was.
Passive Resistance by Samuel Menashe.
Downpour
Windowed I observe
The waning snow
As rain unearths
That raw clay—
Adam’s afterbirth—
No one escapes
I lie down, immerse
Myself in sleep
The windows weep.
Samuel Menashe: New and Selected Poems, Bloodaxe Books; revised edition (January 1, 2009).
Today, I present two poems from the chapbook Poems for Lorca, written by the late Syracuse journalist Walt Shepperd. I discovered the collection in the small gift shop in ArtRage Gallery.
I mistakenly thought the title referenced Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. But in the dedication page, Walt wrote: “For my daughter Lorca.”
Poems for Lorca by Walt Shepperd.
I’ve read this first poem multiple times, and I still don’t understand its meaning. But the ambiguous nature makes me appreciate the work even more. The words first hit me when I flipped through the book while walking along Crouse Avenue after leaving ArtRage on a sunny spring day. I think the poem has a timeless, universal quality.
An Easement for the Highway in Your Mind
The tinder has dried
and bridges
roots
and the canvas
in the windowframes
of someone else’s yesterdays
smolder
from sparks
carried
on an imperceptible breeze
down a road
between
trees
and tents
and tenements
over timbers
charred beyond support
of tomorrow’s weight.
They say
you can’t go home again
and they are mostly wrong
but your return
must be guided
by bulldozer tracks
and burial mounds
and streams filled in
with silt
of ruins crumbling
from your backward glance.
##
The second poem also has a great title and a sense of mystery.
I Dreamt I Took a Two Week Vacation in an Audrey Hepburn Movie
I never wanted birthdays
and Christmas
and mother’s day
to be what now
it seems
they must become,
excuses for remembering
that time is now a luxury.
We build new worlds
and gather things
that patch the strands
that chafe our shells
that brace our memories
into barricades
that must stand by themselves
for time is now a luxury.
The things we gather
gather dust
the barricades
won’t stand a charge
the boxes burn
the seeds grow mold
the papers crumble in the new light,
and love becomes the luxury.
Shepperd, Walt. Poems for Lorca. W.D. Hoffstadt & Sons, 2012.
I intend to place the book in a Little Free Library in my neighborhood so another reader can appreciate Walt’s words.
Today marks nine months since my surgery to remove a benign brain tumor on my pituitary gland. Although it’s not a major milestone, it’s tied to a once-in-a-lifetime event—seeing Bruce Springsteen in concert on April 18 in the JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse.
The concert was originally scheduled for September 7, 2023, and I would have been in no condition during my recovery to climb the concrete steps to the upper rafters of the Dome in Section 336, Row Y. I transferred my ticket to a co-worker, but then the tour was sidelined due to Bruce’s peptic ulcer disease. I’d like to think some heavenly intervention permitted me to attend the rescheduled event in April in a fully restored state.
I went to the concert with my wife, Pam—a rare night out for us and a break for her as she completed her first full year in her occupational therapy assistant program at Bryant and Stratton College. We hired a babysitter and took a Lyft to the show, arriving before the gates opened.
The Dome’s muddy sound system threw me off as the concert began. Bruce’s opening number was “Lonesome Day,” but I couldn’t figure out the tune. I felt like an outfielder in baseball who can’t pick up the ball off the bat. The first song I recognized was “No Surrender,” and the sound quality seemed to improve as the concert wore on.
Bruce and the E Street Band played the anthemic classics, which I have been reliving through the miracle of YouTube: “Badlands,” “Backstreets,” “The Promised Land,” “Thunder Road,” and “Born to Run.”
Up in the nosebleeds, an exuberant middle-aged woman with long, dark hair kept bumping me as she swayed, stomped her feet, clapped her hands, and pumped her fists. She kept apologizing, but I didn’t care about the incidental physical contact. I appreciated the pure joy she displayed, and we formed a bond through our mutual love of the music.
After “Born to Run” finished with a flourish, we shared a two-word conversation—screamed into each other’s ears.
I turned to her and said, “Amazing.”
“Right!” she said.
I hardly go to concerts, and I can’t remember the last stadium concert I attended. It may have been when I saw Bruce in Phoenix in 2002 during The Rising Tour. I went alone to America West Arena during the sweltering heat of August.
A Syracuse woman posted on Facebook that she didn’t enjoy the show because of the behavior of the people around her. And I know a debate persists about proper concert etiquette. As for me, I love it when fans dance and shout the lyrics at the top of their lungs. I mean, if you can’t let loose at a rock concert, where can you? They’re not serving tea and finger sandwiches. I think your ticket should come with a warning like “buyer beware … this isn’t your living room,” and I sang many songs, my voice growing hoarse as the night continued.
Music provides bookmarks for people’s lives. Fans connect songs to significant moments in their lives. Bruce’s music sustained me during my darkest days when I was consumed by loneliness, shame, and self-hatred.
So when Bruce belted out the words to “The Promised Land,” I joined him and thousands of others in screaming:
Blow away the dreams that tear you apart,
Blow away the dreams that break your heart,
Blow away the lies that leave you nothing
But lost and brokenhearted …
While walking in my neighborhood yesterday, I visited the memorial site for five-year-old Nefertiti “Neffy” Harris, who was allegedly beaten to death by her mother in January. The girl’s remains were discovered last month in a field behind an apartment building off Salt Springs Road in Syracuse. People have left balloons, stuffed animals, signs and religious candles at the spot.
Memorial site for Neffy Harris.
On this spring day, birds chirped and pinwheels spun in the breeze. And the bright sunlight, blue sky and peaceful sounds gave me a feeling of tranquility while I reflected on the horrific circumstances of Neffy’s death.
Yet words seem futile when trying to process the murder of a young child whose voice is now silent. There’s nothing you can say to make this situation less tragic. My only hope is that Neffy is in a better place. As I walked away, I also considered the mother’s situation, and the thought that popped into my head was, “Everyone is redeemable.”
As many people in Central New York already know, Ralph is an amazing character with a generous heart, and it was a blast learning more about him.
After walking past his shop almost every day for the past few years, I felt compelled to go inside and talk to him. Inspired by Studs Terkel’s book Working, I wanted to do a mini doc to answer two questions: 1) Do people still get their shoes repaired in the 21st century 2) Can this man actually earn a living through shoe repair alone (taking into account the high cost of a downtown office building lease)? Or does he need an alternate income to survive?
Ralph Rotella hammering a heel. Photo Credit: Shane Johnson.
Ralph was a tough interview, and it was a challenge stringing together a narrative based on his terse sound bites, quips, and comedic digressions. And the film I thought I was making turned into something slightly different. But that’s the beauty of documentary filmmaking; if you take the time to pay attention to your subject, the story will reveal itself to you.
Photo Credit: Shane Johnson.
And through Shane’s fine cinematography—as we observed a “day in the life” of the shop, cinema verité style—we captured authentic personal moments that illustrate the bond Ralph shares with his customers on a daily basis.
This is Ralph’s work bench. It’s my favorite frame from the film. Photo Credit: Shane Johnson.
And here’s a little teaser we prepared in anticipation of the premiere.
I had a morning eye doctor’s appointment earlier this week. And I had some time to kill before the dilation drops rendered my eyes useless for the rest of the day. After getting off the bus at Washington Street near City Hall, I cut across Montgomery Street while making my way to Presidential Plaza.
St. Paul’s Church. Photo by Francis DiClemente.
Brick wall with ivy. Photo by Francis DiClemente.
Along the way, I snapped a few photos with my antiquated, battery-challenged iPhone 8, jotted down a quick poem about some feathered denizens of the Salt City, and captured a moment of tranquility on a sunny morning downtown.
I felt grateful for the opportunity to capture a myriad of sights and sounds the universe sent my way. It was another reminder to always pay attention to my surroundings and be on the lookout for creative inspiration. Here’s the poem I wrote. It required significant revision as it made the transition from my pocket notebook to my computer.
Bird Chatter
Three pigeons
perched on a wire.
What are they
talking about
on this bright,
sunny morning?
But their conversation
is restricted—not for
human interpretation.
And the chatter ends
when the birds
lift from the wire,
taking off in formation,
flapping their wings,
and sending feathers
twirling to the ground.
I just wanted to give a quick update on my recovery. More than two weeks have passed since my brain surgery.
I had a follow-up appointment with my ENT surgeon yesterday. For the endoscopic debridement with suction, they stick a probe up your nose and suck out the junk, but I’ll spare you the gory, bloody details.
The last time I had this in-office procedure after the same transsphenoidal surgery in 2011, the surgeon maneuvered the probe too close to my brain stem and I suffered the worst headache of my life.
It felt like a gorilla had grabbed my head and shook my skull like a coconut—side to side and front to back—until my brain swished around and undulated on the waves of cerebral spinal fluid. I almost couldn’t drive myself home afterward.
Hence, I was anticipating a similar experience yesterday. But after Dr. A. performed the procedure, I had only a mild headache throughout the day and into the night.
He also saw no signs of a CSF leak, so I feel incredibly grateful. Although my right peripheral vision loss hasn’t improved yet, I am getting stronger every day and anticipate returning to work before the end of the month.
Thank you very much for the kind words and continued prayers—they are helping me!
Francis DiClemente 